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Damn the Torpedoes
Gates, a Cold Warrior going back to the 1960s, recently pressed the military
services to tighten their belts. The Air Force pledged to cut its fuel bill
by $500 million over the next five years, while the Army said better e-mail
systems would save it the same amount. This gives you some idea about the
limits of civilian control of the military. On March 14, Gates issued a memo
detailing "efficiencies" he is ordering, including a paltry $12,000 in
savings by closing down an outreach program and $5,000 in combat gabfests.
"It's important not to repeat the mistakes of the past by making drastic and
ill-conceived cuts to the overall defense budget," he says.

But $1 trillion in cuts wouldn't really be as drastic as it sounds  or
as the military's no-surrender defenders insist. Such a trim would still
leave the Pentagon fatter than it was before 9/11. Besides, there are vast
depots of weapons that are ready for the surplus pile. The number of
aircraft carriers could be cut from 11 to eight, and perhaps all could be
scuttled in favor of Barnett's drone carriers. The annual purchase of two $3
billion attack submarines to maintain a 48-sub fleet as far as the periscope
can see also could be scaled back. The $383 billion F-35 program really
isn't required when U.S. warplanes remain the world's best and can be
retooled with new engines and electronics to keep them that way. Reagan-era
missile defenses and the nuclear arsenal are largely Cold War relics with
little relevance today. Altogether, Congress could save close to $500
billion by smartly scaling back procurement over the next decade. (See why the Ryan budget was a test for Obama's character.)

So much for hardware. On the software  or human  side of the ledger,
Pentagon pay and benefits have long needed revamping. Here's a number that
would make Wall Street weep: some 60 members of the crew of the carrier
U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln recently pocketed $3.4 million in bonuses $57,000 each, tax-free  simply to re-enlist. Military pay must be better
aimed at troops the military wants to retain. The 20-years-and-out
retirement system needs to be replaced with a model designed to keep
hard-learned institutional knowledge around for twice as long. Health care
premiums, frozen at $460 a family since 1995, must be raised to keep pace
with the rest of the nation's. (Pentagon medical costs have soared from $19
billion in 2001 to more than $50 billion today.) Gates recognizes just how
top-heavy the Pentagon is. He has proposed cutting 102 of its 952 generals
and admirals. Trimming the ranks and replacing archaic pay schemes with
smarter personnel policies could save $400 billion over the coming decade,
says the bipartisan Sustainable Defense Task Force, a group created by
Congress.

Better cloaked but just as ripe for reduction are dozens of specialized
military agencies and outposts, most of which date from the Cold War and are
no longer as key to our defense as they once were. The U.S. now has 17
intelligence agencies  from the well-known CIA to the well-hidden
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency  generating so much
"intelligence" that much of it can't even be reviewed. Each service has its
own intelligence shop, plus a Defense Intelligence Agency to handle anything
that might fall through the cracks. Scaling back collection and analysis to
what's vital  as opposed to what is possible  could cut military
intelligence budgets by more than $100 billion in the next 10 years,
according to an estimate from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. (The Budget Ax: Why Homeless Veterans But Not NASCAR?)

Such cuts would still leave the U.S. military as the world's most potent. It
would remain the lone force with global reach, given its logistical,
communications and intelligence dominance. It would still be the only power
able to send warships, warplanes and missiles virtually anywhere in the
world at any time. A recent New York Times/CBS poll found that if they had
to choose, citizens were far more willing to cut defense (55%) than Medicare
(21%) or Social Security (13%). Yet Congress continues to resist even minor
reductions. California Representative Howard McKeon, the Republican chairman
of the Armed Services Committee, says, "A defense budget in decline portends
an America in decline." Attitudes like that can bankrupt a nation, and the
public senses it.

No Politics, Please. We're Broke
Of course, the Pentagon by itself doesn't decide where to spend all the
money. That's up to Congress  which is a big part of the problem.
Nothing else seems to lead lawmakers to open the federal purse like the
prospect of, for example, an aircraft carrier's steaming home to their
district. Between the ship and the dozens of aircraft stored below decks, a
Navy carrier is a $15 billion purchase. And that's before adding the
accompanying destroyers and submarines. With numbers like that, who needs
pork? It's little surprise that the folks most involved in the purchase of
these ships  the members of the sea-power subcommittees  hail from
Navy-friendly coastal states with a strong interest in keeping as many of
them sailing as possible.